Site Search

The Truth About Cardio and Fat Loss

By Alexander Gruezo

Ever notice that individuals, who participate in cardio activities that require explosive movement or involve a short distance, are typically lean, toned, and defined, while individuals in cardio activities that require less explosive movement or involve relatively long distances, are typically less muscular, somewhat toned, and less defined?

Yet, although the longer distance individual burns far more calories during their activity as opposed to the short distance individual they typically have a higher percentage of body fat when measured. Why is that you ask?

For starters, lower intensity, higher duration cardio makes it difficult for the body to maintain lean muscle because it tends to break muscle tissue in order to use the protein for energy. This is extremely important to know because it is lean muscle that uses fat for energy when we are at rest. The less muscle one has, the less potential to burn fat and therefore greater potential to store fat. Not only that, but once an individual stops the activity, it is relatively easy for the body to recover. Therefore it will not require many calories for the recovery and repair process while the individual is at rest. Finally, although a higher percentage of calories burned comes from fat with this type of activity, the body adapts in such a way that if you continue to do this activity, you will actually be burning less total calories for the same distance and therefore less fat calories although the percentage will remain relatively the same (50% of 300 which is 150 is less than 50% of 500 which is 250). This now means you will either have to go longer or go harder to increase that caloric expenditure.

Contrast that to higher intensity, lower duration cardio. This type of activity spares muscle break down. In fact, it promotes an increase in lean muscle in order to produce higher amounts of force. After all, the reason we all have muscle is to produce force. Not only does muscle get spared, but due to the nature of the activity, when an individual stops, there is a tremendous amount of recovery and repair that goes on. This recovery and repair requires higher amounts of calories at rest to fuel the process. And the predominant fuel source for calories when we are at rest is... You got it. It's FAT! You also may be wondering, doesn't the body adapt to this type of activity as well? Of course it does. It adapts by increasing lean muscle. This then allows you to apply more force. The more force you apply, the faster or harder you can go. The faster or harder you go, the more calories you will require to fuel these muscles during the activity but even as important, you will require more calories to repair and recover. It's a win-win situation.

This explains why sprinters are more muscular, more toned, and more defined than a marathon runner.

This is not to say that long, slow distance activity is useless. It's not. This type of activity is great for developing aerobic capacity. It also is great for training the heart and lungs. And because a higher percentage of the calories burned comes from fat, a great thing to do, if your goal is to lose fat, is after performing some high intensity, short duration cardio, you can follow it with lower intensity, moderate duration cardio, not only to assist with recovery and repair, but to take advantage of the increase fat burning that occurs during recovery and repair. You're adding fuel to the fire so to speak.

About the Author:

Alexander Gruezo is located in New York, NY. He has an M.S. in Exercise Science and Health Promotion. He holds multiple certifications, which include but are not limited to CSCS, PES, USAW, and KBC Senior Kettlebell Instructor. He is a sought out EXPERT in the fitness industry for people who are SERIOUS about getting in shape and being healthy. Please visit his website at: www.no-bs-nyc-personal-trainer.com